The question is, whether liberty has ever lived in the hearts of men and women. And if yes, in the hearts of how many.

It seems that to most people, the notion of free speech has always seemed an artificial imposition, and that this is why it doesn't stick, or only in a conditional form (inasmuch people simply strive to be law-abiding citizens, without having much appreciation for the actual laws themselves).

It seems that in the usa there are certain ideologies which are resisted so vehemently that people giving speeches at universities incur very large security expenses and public rioting. This seems to be a fact which is not going to go away....so....what can be done to protect free speech.
The solution: Universities should have or have access to live prodcast of speeches from safe places to public venues so that the protected speech can be presented and heard without danger to the speaker. Viewing sites can be distributed widely so that it would be difficult to impossible for hoodlums to shut them down.....a system for audience interaction could be implemented....the system could be very much like a live in person speech but it would thwart the hoodlums.
The most important thing is that ideas can be freely disseminated and people would be able to question the speaker too.....all of the important aspects of free speech would be maintained.
This should satisfy the need for speech to be freely made for people to hear....but it will not satisfy the speakers whose main goal is to cause hoodlum action against theirselves and want to appear persecuted.......interesting how most of the speakers it seems that were shut down by the hoodlums did not think that the speech they were slated to give was important enough for them to transcribe it and make it freely available on the internet.....or did they do that and I just missed it?
chownah

What is this liberty that must lie in the hearts of men and women? It is not the ruthless, the unbridled will; it is not the freedom to do as one likes. That is the denial of liberty and leads straight to its overthrow. A society in which men recognize no check on their freedom soon becomes a society where freedom is the possession of only a savage few — as we have learned to our sorrow.

Speaking of freedom of speech (or the lack thereof) and communism disguised as “liberalism” or “progressiveness” making a big-comeback in Western Europe, we just got word from B’nai Brith that a Canadian woman from Alberta was arrested in Germany. Her crime? Well, her crime is historic revisionism, i.e. a thought-crime. The thing is, in modern Germany (and other “democratic” EU countries, France comes to mind), it is forbidden by law to question the holocaust. The punishment for holocaust heresy can land the sinner for up to five years in prison. Speaking of the non aggression principle, in 2018 in Germany you can go to jail for a significant amount of time just for expressing a view on a historic event that took place almost 80 years ago. The latest victim of Germany’s pathological historic-guilt with regard to War World 2 is Monika Schaefer, who got reported (as in they rat her out) by B’nai Brith, a Jewish group, who filed a complaint with German authorities against the Canadian woman for what they described as anti-semitic incitement.

The anti-semitic incitement accusation is due to a video made by Monika Schaefer back in 2016. The video was titled “Sorry Mom, I was wrong about the holocaust” and incidentally, it became viral, boasting more than 160,000 views. The respective video (see below) depicts Monika Schaefer telling her (German) mom that she regrets blaming her for not taking action to stop the holocaust, referring to the death camps, arbeit macht frei and the whole nine yards. And that’s because later in her life, Monika Schaefer learned through research that the holocaust as presented by mainstream-historians was, let me quote, the “biggest and most pernicious and persistent lie in all of history.” According to Monika Schaefer, detention camps (forced labor camps) clearly existed, but they were used by Nazi Germany to help with the war effort, i.e. the Germans had no interested in killing their free labor-force, as they were vital to work in factories. She also said that the famous gas chambers were actually used to kill the disease-carrying lice (typhus was big then, and a lot of the prisoners in concentration camps died from typhus, a lice-carried disease) on prisoners’ clothing. For these assertions, she was arrested in Germany and imprisoned, facing 5 years of jail time.

She should be able to think and say whatever she wants, but you have to wonder about anyone who goes public to deny or question the Holocaust. Not because of any overwhelming evidence that it did in fact occur or not (that's besides my point), but because the backlash is clearly known. There is no question how the world will react. Only a masochist or idiot would take the time to endure that aspect. And for what? She should not have to go to real jail, just idiot jail.

Inside Higher Ed wrote:Britain May Fine Universities That Limit Free Speech
January 2, 2018
Britain plans to create a new government office that will have the authority to fine universities that do not uphold principles of free speech. In a speech Dec. 26, Jo Johnson, the universities minister, said that universities

"should be places that open minds, not close them, where ideas can be freely challenged and prejudices exposed. But in universities in America and increasingly in the United Kingdom, there are countervailing forces of censorship, where groups have sought to stifle those who do not agree with them in every way under the banner of ‘safe spaces’ or ‘no-platforming.’ However well intentioned, the proliferation of such safe spaces, the rise of no-platforming, the removal of ‘offensive’ books from libraries and the drawing up of ever more extensive lists of banned ‘trigger’ words are undermining the principle of free speech in our universities."

Alistair Jarvis, chief executive of Universities UK, which represents British universities, issued this statement: “Universities are absolutely committed to promoting and securing free speech and will not allow legitimate speech to be stifled. There is already a legal duty on the higher education sector to secure free speech within the law and universities take these responsibilities very seriously. They have a duty, not only to secure freedom of speech, but also to protect the safety of students and staff."

Britain's National Union of Students has endorsed bans on certain figures or groups speaking on campuses, and some supporters of that policy are taking to social media to defend that approach, even as many others are praising Johnson.
-- https://www.insidehighered.com/quicktak ... ree-speech

Inside Higher Ed wrote:Britain May Fine Universities That Limit Free Speech
January 2, 2018
......
.....
Britain's National Union of Students has endorsed bans on certain figures or groups speaking on campuses, and some supporters of that policy are taking to social media to defend that approach, even as many others are praising Johnson.
-- https://www.insidehighered.com/quicktak ... ree-speech

The solution: Universities should have or have access to live brodcast of speeches from safe places to public venues so that the protected speech can be presented and heard without danger to the speaker. Viewing sites can be distributed widely so that it would be difficult to impossible for hoodlums to shut them down.....a system for audience interaction could be implemented....the system could be very much like a live in person speech but it would thwart the hoodlums.
The most important thing is that ideas can be freely disseminated and people would be able to question the speaker too.....all of the important aspects of free speech would be maintained.
This should satisfy the need for speech to be freely made for people to hear....but it will not satisfy the speakers whose main goal is to cause hoodlum action against theirselves and want to appear persecuted.......interesting how most of the speakers it seems that were shut down by the hoodlums did not think that the speech they were slated to give was important enough for them to transcribe it and make it freely available on the internet.....or did they do that and I just missed it?

I'm not so sure free speech for Nazis is such a good idea, we all saw how that played out in Germany decades ago.

18 years ago I made one of the most important decisions of my life and entered a local Cambodian Buddhist Temple as a temple boy and, for only 3 weeks, an actual Therevada Buddhist monk. I am not a scholar, great meditator, or authority on Buddhism, but Buddhism is something I love from the Bottom of my heart. It has taught me sobriety, morality, peace, and very importantly that my suffering is optional, and doesn't have to run my life. I hope to give back what little I can to the Buddhist community, sincerely former monk John

The solution: Universities should have or have access to live brodcast of speeches from safe places to public venues so that the protected speech can be presented and heard without danger to the speaker. Viewing sites can be distributed widely so that it would be difficult to impossible for hoodlums to shut them down.....a system for audience interaction could be implemented....the system could be very much like a live in person speech but it would thwart the hoodlums.
The most important thing is that ideas can be freely disseminated and people would be able to question the speaker too.....all of the important aspects of free speech would be maintained.
This should satisfy the need for speech to be freely made for people to hear....but it will not satisfy the speakers whose main goal is to cause hoodlum action against theirselves and want to appear persecuted.......interesting how most of the speakers it seems that were shut down by the hoodlums did not think that the speech they were slated to give was important enough for them to transcribe it and make it freely available on the internet.....or did they do that and I just missed it?

chownah

Excellent points. I think the changing nature of education in general will have a big impact upon the debate about free speech. Increasing amounts of learning are taking place on-line anyway, for reasons that have little to do with social philosophy. Many universities are under pressure to deliver courses to larger numbers of students and also those who favour "distance learning" and have been brought up with social media platforms. In addition, it is cheaper and easier for lecturers to deliver to camera and then their "best moments" can be recycled thereafter. This will mean that there are far fewer opportunities for objectors to close down debate, as the infrastructure will already be there. And you are absolutely right that the set-piece battles will only be fought when someone wants to make a point. Milo Yiannopoulos is the obvious name that springs to mind.

There is also the view that debate about social issues is moving, or ought to move, away from universities entirely, leaving them to engage in vocational training. It is vocationalism that drives most of the expansion in student numbers, and there is a view that we already have quite enough liberal studies and culture experts. I read an interesting essay that such topics could well move from the university to an older cafe or coffee-shop culture and setting: http://quillette.com/2017/12/21/time-m ... ve-cafe/

I'm not so sure free speech for Nazis is such a good idea, we all saw how that played out in Germany decades ago.

How about if someone decided your opinions made you worthy of throwing in jail?

"Does Master Gotama have any position at all?"

"A 'position,' Vaccha, is something that a Tathagata has done away with. What a Tathagata sees is this: 'Such is form, such its origination, such its disappearance; such is feeling, such its origination, such its disappearance; such is perception...such are fabrications...such is consciousness, such its origination, such its disappearance.'" - Aggi-Vacchagotta Sutta

Inside Higher Ed wrote:Britain May Fine Universities That Limit Free Speech
Britain's National Union of Students has endorsed bans on certain figures or groups speaking on campuses, and some supporters of that policy are taking to social media to defend that approach, even as many others are praising Johnson.
-- https://www.insidehighered.com/quicktak ... ree-speech

Here, Paññobhāsa doesn't need to work himself up to his usual towering disdain - but he does anyway. He mainly lets the material speak for itself, and invites one to watch with horrified fascination. I don't know what's more scary - that places like Google exist, or that some employees are obviously interested in modifying Google searches in order to provide us with the "correct" results.

What you don't seem to understand is Private institutions like google and facebook have no legal reason to be equanimious to both left and right viewpoints, they're fully allowed to be a left wing or right wing institution, you don't see anyone complaining about Fox News (another private institution) not giving equal time to left wing viewpoints.

18 years ago I made one of the most important decisions of my life and entered a local Cambodian Buddhist Temple as a temple boy and, for only 3 weeks, an actual Therevada Buddhist monk. I am not a scholar, great meditator, or authority on Buddhism, but Buddhism is something I love from the Bottom of my heart. It has taught me sobriety, morality, peace, and very importantly that my suffering is optional, and doesn't have to run my life. I hope to give back what little I can to the Buddhist community, sincerely former monk John

What you don't seem to understand is Private institutions like google and facebook have no legal reason to be equanimious to both left and right viewpoints, they're fully allowed to be a left wing or right wing institution, you don't see anyone complaining about Fox News (another private institution) not giving equal time to left wing viewpoints.

I do understand that, but the article raises a number of different concerns. There is the harassment of dissenting opinions, for example, and Reynolds' claim that the compiling and maintaining of blacklists is illegal. More worrying than these legal issues are concerns about the potential manipulation of Google searches so as to provide customers with the "correct" material, especially given the near-monopoly position of the company; and the worrying example of a toxic "group-think" in any organisation, regardless of its legality.

I often see people criticising Fox News for the type of coverage it supplies.

The truth is somewhat left of centre today IMHO, time was it was in the middle but everything has been moving to the right, except the truth.

18 years ago I made one of the most important decisions of my life and entered a local Cambodian Buddhist Temple as a temple boy and, for only 3 weeks, an actual Therevada Buddhist monk. I am not a scholar, great meditator, or authority on Buddhism, but Buddhism is something I love from the Bottom of my heart. It has taught me sobriety, morality, peace, and very importantly that my suffering is optional, and doesn't have to run my life. I hope to give back what little I can to the Buddhist community, sincerely former monk John

The answer is no, and Damore was fired. The 26-year-old promptly became a martyr for an alt-right that believes that losing your job for being a sexist arsehole is an injustice equivalent to facing centuries of structural oppression. Damore is convinced that he lost his job because of what he thinks, rather than because of how he behaved, and that he is being punished by a culture of “political correctness”, which is what used to be called human decency.

He is not alone. Donald Trump received his strongest support at the polls among Americans who believed that men, Christians and, in particular, white people, were being unfairly discriminated against. The new right feeds off this narrative of victimhood. It’s seductive. It allows the vertebrally challenged to feel justified in their crass and reactionary opinions, and righteous when they face a backlash. It’s not you, it says – it’s them. You have been used to privilege, so equality feels like prejudice.